Unity Grill

Unity Grill.

Unity Grill is a Social Restaurant in Ayr, Scotland. Unity Grill provides a welcome table, delicious food and community spirited sharing with 100% of their profits used to challenge food poverty. It is the first of its kind in Scotland.

At Unity Grill they wanted to offer a beautiful, welcome space where the local community can gather, enjoy a meal, or coffee together while doing their bit for the local community. Their motto : EAT WELL, DO GOOD. Their profits and 'pay it forward' schemes help pay for meals for those who cannot afford it and they hope to try and restore some of the dignity food poverty takes away.

Until Grill took on the challenge of converting an old clothes shop in a run down listed building, into a new restaurant, with associated kitchen, office, and rest rooms with less to no funding or budget. It was a mammoth challenge, and was achieved through the valiant and hard working efforts of many many individuals, businesses, product suppliers and donations. It was the community that brought this building back to life, with Angela the driving force behind the project, pushing forward for over a year. I am extremely proud to have been a part of it.

Involvement.

I met Angela, the driving force behind Unity Grill at a screening of 'I, Daniel Blake' where I offered my services as both designer and builder. Through my employer at the time, Denham/Benn, we helped the Unity Grill achieve the relevant building permissions they required and co-ordinated their CDM Health & Safety, and Engineers.

In my own time I co-ordinated and ran a series of workshops with the Upcycled Pallet Company to utilise volunteer labour to get a large portion of the initial building work done. In the spirit of the Unity Grill we were able to offer valuable volunteering opportunities to those who had time to give and who wished to gain some new skills.

We ran a series of workshops with unskilled individuals and groups such as Womens Aid, to produce flooring, wall cladding, and tables.